MacTech Blog

Dec 13

U.S. content makes up over two-thirds of films...

A survey from the European Audiovisual Observatory (EAO) looking at the origin of film content in the EU has revealed the persisting dominance of American content within the region, according to RapidTV News (www.rapidtvnews.com).

The study, sampling 131 TV channels from 18 different EU member countries, found that overall, films produced in Europe made up 28% of movies broadcast by a sample of TV channels during the 2015/2016 season. The figure breaks down into 14% for national films and a further 14% for European non-national films, indicating, said the observatory, the “significant’” circulation of European films. However, this drops to 23% during prime time.

Public channels tended to broadcast more European films than their private counterparts. Taking a full day on public television, the EAO found that European films accounted for 44% of all films broadcast. This figure fell to 24% for the...

About a third of U.S. Internet users look to online video content as their primary way to watch video, according to figures from Raymond James, as reported by “eMarketer” (https://tinyurl.com/y7zv88s3).

About 31% of Internet users polled in November said that a subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service is their main outlet for video entertainment. Netflix accounts for most of that: more than three-quarters (76%) of respondents named Netflix as one of the services they would pay for if they had to choose just three, based on their current budget — a success for the streaming giant that largely goes back to its original content investments, such as global hit Stranger Things.

The 31% figure is up from 24% in 2016, and almost neck-and-neck with the 35% who primarily use cable. The cable group cited access to broadcast TV channels, sports content and premium channels as their reasons for not...

U.S. consumers are locked in a vicious circle with brands over customer experience, according to new research from Accenture (www.accenture.com).

While 44% are frustrated when companies fail to deliver relevant, personalized shopping experiences, nearly half (49%) are concerned about personal data privacy as they subscribe to intelligent services designed to understand and anticipate their needs. Poor personalization and lack of trust cost U.S. organizations $756 billion last year, as 41% of consumers switched companies. Without deeper customer insight, companies can’t deliver the experiences they crave, according to Accenture.

The thirteenth annual Accenture Strategy Global Consumer Pulse Research gauged the attitudes and expectations of more than 25,000 consumers around the world, including 2,000 U.S. consumers, about their appetite for more intuitive, technology-driven brand experiences. As...

Worldwide spending on Telecom Services and Pay TV Services is forecast to reach nearly $1.7 billion in 2017, an increase of 1.7% over 2016, according to IDC. The research group expects worldwide spending on Telecom and Pay TV services to grow 2% year over year and surpass $1.7 billion in 2018.

The largest segment of the market is Mobile which represents 52% of the total market in 2017. The mobile market is expected to have a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2% over the 2017-2021 forecast period, driven by the growth in mobile data usage and M2M applications, which is offsetting declines in spending on mobile voice and messaging services. Fixed data service spending represents 21% of the total market in 2017 and that is set to grow by a CAGR of 4% driven by the need for higher bandwidth services.

Juniper Research (www.juniperresearch.com) forecasts that the number of mobile users adopting NFC ticketing will exceed 375 million by 2022, up from an estimated 122 million in 2017.

While there is rapid growth in NFC ticketing in European markets, there search group has scaled back NFC ticketing adoption in many other markets, such as the U.S., India, and Africa, due to the lack of available services and infrastructure. However, driven by open standards and the adoption of OEM wallets such as Apple Pay and Android Pay, mobile NFC ticketing will witness higher growth rate in comparison to mTicketing over the next five years, representing an average annual growth of 25%, Juniper forecasts.

The new research found that the continued failure to persuade transport operators of the NFC value proposition is proving a severe constraint on the sector, except in Japan and Korea where adoption has been...

Valassis (www.valassis.com), which specializes in “intelligent media delivery,” has announced results from its 2017 Valassis Holiday Shopper Survey. The findings provide insights into consumer expectations and behavior for the remaining 2017 holiday shopping season, particularly for moms, millennials and millennial parents.

According to the study, the shopping season is far from over: 83% of holiday shoppers plan to purchase gifts after Cyber Monday and more than half (56%) of these shoppers are headed in-store for their purchases. According to RetailMeNot, 87 % of consumers plan to visit a physical retail store in the month of December – representing an opportunity for brick and mortar retailers in the last few weeks before the holidays.

Consumers are looking for deals, with 82% of respondents – and 88% of millennials – saying that offers sway their gift lists. Overall, 53% of respondents (and 61% of...

Canalys (www.canalys.com) forecasts that 93.7 million cars will be sold worldwide in 2017, up just 1.7% on 2016.

Low single-digit percentage sales volume growth will continue for the next five years, peaking at 99 million cars sold in 2022, according to the research group. Annual global sales will then decline as the urban mobility revolution, already affecting the market, gathers pace.

“The convenience of owning a car comes at a cost. Cars are under-used – they sit idle for more than 90% of the time. The wider availability of urban mobility services, such as ride-hailing, car-sharing and robotaxis, will further reduce car ownership. With the expectation of everything on demand, these services will revolutionize how people travel,” said Chris Jones, chief analyst, Automotive at Canalys.

“There are already too many cars on our heavily-congested roads, and most pollute the air and only carry one person...

Global sales of smartphones to end users totaled 383 million units in the third quarter of 2017, a 3% increase over the same period in 2016, according to Gartner, Inc. (www.gartner.com)All of the top five smartphone vendors achieved double-digit growth apart from Apple, which achieved a 5.7% increase, adds the research group.

"Despite market weakness in China, sales of smartphones rose in the third quarter of 2017," said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner. "Emerging Asia/Pacific (15% increase) and North America (11.2% increase) drove the smartphone growth in the quarter."

"In emerging Asia Pacific, both Samsung and Huawei saw healthy demand as along with Xiaomi and Vivo, which were able to grow their footprint outside their home markets," added Gupta. "In North America, Samsung was the driving force in the quarter due to its new flagship products.”

According to a new forecast from IDC (www.idc.com) overall smartphone shipments will steadily grow from 1.5 billion units in 2017 to 1.7 billion units in 2021.

And “phablets" (smartphones with a screen size of 5.5 inches to under-7 inches) will far outpace total market growth by climbing from 611 million units in 2017 to one billion units in 2021, representing a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.1%, according to the research group. In comparison, the total smartphone market is expected to grow at a 3.0% CAGR during the same period, while normal smartphones (under 5.5 inches) will decline 7.4%. Overall, IDC lowered its previous forecast for 2018-2021 by 1.1%-1.5%,depending on the year.

Android-based phablets have been the primary driver of large-screen smartphones and IDC expects this trend to continue in the years to come. Samsung's early dominance of the phablet category has been short lived as...

A new study from Juniper Research (www.juniperresearch.com) finds that there will be more than 285 million ear-based wearables or “hearables” used in 2022, a nearly sevenfold increase over the 43 million expected to be in use by the end of 2017.

The research found that the growing trend for wireless audio, accelerated by smartphone original equipment manufacturers removing the 3.5mm headphone jack, is pushing the average price of headphones up, reducing the price gap between headphones and hearables. Multimedia hearables (hearables focused on providing audio) will be the leading category, comprising over 50% of hearables used throughout the forecast period. These will be a key platform for digital assistants, with over 80% having a voice assistant like Siri or Alexa.

Juniper expects large tech firms like Apple and Google to dominate this category, but new entrants like NuHeara and Nuraphone...

The global smart fitness devices market is expected to reach USD 29.4 billion by 2025, according to a new report by Grand View Research.

The smart fitness devices market has witnessed a rising demand among the growing urban population in a bid to enhance their fitness goals, according to the research group. Advantages such as accessing fitness activities data in remote and real-time operations have resulted in an increased penetration of the market.

Additionally, there are tremendous opportunities for advancements in the smart fitness devices owing to the increasing usage of smartphones and enhanced internet accessibility, which, in turn, would fuel the growth of smart fitness market, according to Grand View Research. The growing adoption of the smart fitness devices to keep track of sleep, steps, calories, heart rate, and other bodily stats is anticipated to revolutionize the market by 2025.

The smart fitness devices market has been segmented based on product...

Under his hat as a sometimes web hosting and domain name provider (Webnamehost.com and WebNameSource.com) the Spy must monitor the spam arriving at his server. Numerous filters and subscriptions to spam services cut the volume of mail by forty percent in a slack month and as much as ninety-five precent during time when the BlackHats think they're on to something new.

Usually, this is a good thing. But recently, spam sent out from another server at the data centre where his box is located caught the attention of Spamhaus and the service decided to blacklist the entire range of IP addresses at NewTek (formerly Atjeu), even though a single offender was operating from very small subset of those addresses. Nothing the DC has done so far has been able to convince the Spamhaus people to lift or modify the blacklist. Spamhaus doesn't deign to reply to complaints from a renter of addresses like the Spy.

According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, global 5G smartphone shipments will grow from two million units in 2019 to reach an impressive 1.5 billion in 2025. The 5G category will be the fastest-growing sector of the global smartphone industry for the next decade. Growth opportunities are huge for companies such as Qualcomm, Intel and Apple, according to the research group.

“We forecast global 5G smartphone shipments to grow from 2 million units in 2019 to an impressive 1.5 billion in 2025,” Neil Mawston, executive director at Strategy Analytics, said. “We forecast global 5G smartphone shipments to grow at an average annual rate of 250% between 2019 and 2025. The 5G category will be the fastest-growing sector of the worldwide smartphone industry for the next decade.”

According to the latest forecast from International Data Corporation (IDC), global shipments of personal computing devices (PCDs) – composed of traditional PCs (desktop, notebooks and workstations) and tablets (slate, detachable) – are expected to decline 2.7% year over year in 2017.

While this is a slower contraction compared to the previous year, IDC's Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker (www.idc.com) forecasts the shipments to decline further (4% year over year) in 2018. Looking toward the end of the five-year forecast, volumes are expected to continue declining from 423.3 million in 2017 to 393.9 million in 2021. This represents a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of -2.0%.

When breaking down the PCD market, traditional PC shipments are expected to drop from 260.2 million units in 2016 to 248.1 million in 2021 units, resulting in a five-year CAGR of -0.9%. However, when detachable tablets...

Flexera (www.flexera.com), the company that’s “reimagining how software is bought, sold, managed and secured, has announced an IDG Research/Flexera CIO QuickPulse poll revealing that IT execs remain extremely concerned about the visibility of applications deployed in the cloud – specifically Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) implementations.

“Organizations are spending millions on software running on the cloud,” said Walker White, vice president of Data Platform at Flexera. “Yet, many have no idea that moving their applications to the cloud often exposes them to the same security and compliance risk they faced with on-premises. IT executives are rightfully concerned. Bottom line? Without visibility into their IT assets on the cloud, companies can’t reduce those risks and make sound business decisions.”

New data from Parks Associates (www.parksassociates.com) shows that 49% of U.S. broadband households use a personal assistant through an app or dedicated device, which is a key use case for a voice-based user experience. Currently 10% of U.S. broadband households own a smart speaker with a personal assistant, such as an Amazon Echo or Google Home, notes the research group.

“Collectively, companies are competing to stay in the race for dominance in the voice-first market," said Dina Abdelrazik, research analyst, Parks Associates. "Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Samsung continue to announce new product enhancements in order to stay ahead of the demand for voice technologies. As the voice-first landscape expands, we will see voice capabilities embedded into a variety of devices, from appliances to thermostats to lighting. Voice alleviates complexity in the user experience for these products, and...

"The managed cloud services market is creating fundamental changes in the outsourcing industry involving the entrance of new providers, partnership ecosystems, investment requirements and opportunities, though also bringing with it some critical challenges to players shifting from a world of non-cloud (legacy) outsourcing to managed cloud services," said David Tapper, vice president, IDC's Outsourcing and Managed Cloud Services program.

The study by IDC (www.idc.com) provides a forecast of managed cloud services involving private, public, and hybrid markets across eight major regions. The study also includes advice to providers of IT services, an analysis of market and industry trends by key managed...

Virtual reality headset shipments are showing no signs of slowing, as the quarterly total exceeded one million units for the first time in quarter three (Q3) of 2017, according to the Canalys (www.canalys.com) research group.

Sony took the lead, shipping more than 490,000 PlayStation VR (PS VR) sets in Q3. It was followed by Oculus, which shipped 210,000 of its Rift headsets. HTC took third place, shipping 160,000 Vive VR units. Collectively, Sony, Oculus and HTC made up 86% of the total market in Q3 2017.

Oculus increased shipments of its Rift headsets by cutting the price to US$399 for a limited time, matching that of the PS VR. “VR adoption in the consumer segment is highly dependent on price, and Oculus’ strategy of lowering prices has definitely helped drive adoption,” said Canalys Research Analyst Vincent Thielke.
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Incumbents and new players entering the market are targeting similar price...

The global smart TV market is expected to reach $292.55 billion by 2025, according to Research and Markets (www.researchandmarkets.com). The introduction of 4K resolution-equipped televisions, coupled with the shifting preference toward OLED and QLED displays, is expected to emerge as a major trend in the smart TV industry, according to the research group.

Streaming devices such as Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Google Chromecast are changing the consumers' viewing experience. Several manufacturers are teaming up with OTT content and device providers to provide built-in features with no further requirement of a set-top box. For instance, TCL Corporation has teamed up with Roku. and introduced a 4K HDR Roku TV. The China-based vendor is using the Roku platform for its television product line. Additionally, Hitachi, Hisense, and Sharp have also teamed up with Roku to provide such features.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai is delivering on his promise (threat?) to block the net neutrality regulations designed to protect the equal treatment of Internet content. Pai distributed his plan to other FCC commissioners Tuesday (Nov. 21) in preparation for a Dec. 14 vote.

Net neutrality is the principle that all online data should be treated equally by Internet service providers (ISPs). Net neutrality regulations, set in 2015, ban ISPs from obstructing access to content, or from singling out some types of websites over others. Chairman Pai’s proposal, to be voted on at the FCC’s Dec. 14 meeting, would finally roll back the 2015 regulations.

“Under my proposal, the federal government will stop micromanaging the Internet,” Pai said in his statement. “Instead, the FCC would simply require Internet service providers to be transparent about their practices so that consumers can buy the service plan that’s best for them.”

Massive change in car needs and technology will drive $249 billion sales in 2027, according to a new report from Reportbuyer (www.reportbuyer.com).

The biggest change in cars in 100 years is now starting, adds the research group. It’s driven by totally new requirements and capabilities, according to Reportbuyer. They will cause huge new businesses to appear but some giants currently making cars and their parts will spectacularly go bankrupt. Cities will ban private cars but encourage cars as autonomous taxis and rental vehicles. Already 65% of cars in China are bought by businesses.

The Japanese want the car to be part of the hydrogen economy and a source of power when the next earthquakes and tsunamis hit. The emerging countries want car-like vehicles, mainly as taxis, that are one tenth of the cost and never refuel because the ample sunshine and wind will be grabbed and stored by the vehicle....

The global market for consumer cloud storage services is expected to grow at an exponential rate through 2025, according to new data from Persistence Market Research (http://tinyurl.com/yc8todhw).

The global market is estimated to reach a valuation of more than $2.8 billion by the end of the assessment year from a value of $873 million in 2017 and is poised to register a CAGR [compound annual growth rate] of 15.9% during the period of forecast, 2017-2025, adds the research group. The global consumer cloud storage services market is segmented by user age, storage tier and region.

° By storage tier, the 50 GB - 999 GB segment is the largest and is likely to dominate the global market by the end of 2025 with an estimated market value above $1.6 million. It is also the fastest growing segment.

° By user age, the 18-40 segment leads the market with a high market valuation and is poised to...

New research says that today’s kids spend 5 to 7 hours each day in front of a screen, whether it is watching television, playing video games, or surfing the web. Over the holidays, screen time only increases as kids have long, cold days ahead of them and parents become desperate for ways to keep them occupied.

“Screen time in this country has become a huge problem,” says Karl Volkman, tech expert and CTO of SRV Network. “Even traditional holidays activities have become overwhelmed by screen use—kids watch videos in the car while traveling to see Grandma, or they play with the iPad during Christmas recitals, or they play video games instead of baking cookies and wrapping gifts and getting in the Christmas spirit.”

Not only is this bad for their health and their brain development, it can also come with risks from online predators (1 in 7 kids will be solicited by predators online). Here, Karl Volkman outlines his "Holiday Screen Time Rules" to help kids...

Mobile-based proximity payments are gaining prominence in the U.S. Although mobile payments are still small compared to well-established payment methods such as payment cards, they reached a new milestone with the launch of Apple Pay, Alipay, Android Pay, and Samsung Pay, according to a new report from Research and Markets (www.researchandmarkets.com)

Increasing consumer awareness of mobile payment solutions and rising penetration of contactless terminals are likely to drive further growth in mobile-based proximity payments, adds the research group. The U.S. is the second-largest e-commerce market in the world, with a total of $742 billion spent by consumers online in 2017.

Debit and credit cards remain the preferred method of payment for e-commerce purchases, and accounted for 24.5% of total e-commerce transaction value in 2017. In addition to payment cards, emerging payment methods...

Mobile-based proximity payments are gaining prominence in the U.S. Although mobile payments are still small compared to well-established payment methods such as payment cards, they reached a new milestone with the launch of Apple Pay, Alipay, Android Pay, and Samsung Pay, according to a new report from Research and Markets (www.researchandmarkets.com)

Increasing consumer awareness of mobile payment solutions and rising penetration of contactless terminals are likely to drive further growth in mobile-based proximity payments, adds the research group. The U.S. is the second-largest e-commerce market in the world, with a total of $742 billion spent by consumers online in 2017.

Debit and credit cards remain the preferred method of payment for e-commerce purchases, and accounted for 24.5% of total e-commerce transaction value in 2017. In addition to payment cards, emerging payment methods...

The software defined data center (SDDC) market is estimated to witness a CAGR [compound annual growth rate] of 19.88% to reach a total market size of $90.416 billion by 2022, up from $36.517 billion in 2017, according to new data from Research and Markets (www.researchandmarkets.com).

The upsurge in the use of the Internet and networking has heightened the demand for storage space, computing power, and complex networking, according to the research group. This increased demand has given rise to scaling up of infrastructure across various data centers and incremental budget allocation towards meeting the burgeoning IT infrastructure requirement.

SDDC is a sophisticated concept that allows the data centers to seamlessly scale up their infrastructure plus it helps the in the simplified management of all resources and unification of networking and server storage. It is cost effective, allows...

The holiday shopping report from Parks Associates (www.parksassociates.com) shows millennials will lead the smart home and CE purchasing the holiday season, with 46% reporting high intentions to buy at least one device and 36% planning to give one as a gift.

The Internet of Things (IoT) research firm, which surveyed U.S. broadband households on their purchase intentions for this holiday season, found one-third of U.S. broadband households report a high intention to purchase a CE or smart home device this holiday season.

"Consumer marketing strategies and technology evangelism by Amazon and Google have created attention for smart home and connected CE devices, creating an opportunity for a big jump in these products this holiday season," said Elizabeth Parks, SVP, Parks Associates. "Fourteen percent of U.S. broadband households intend to purchase a smart video doorbell, potentially driving...

With the holiday shopping season in full-swing and Black Friday right around the corner, traditional brick-and-mortar retailers are hoping their in-store strategies will help attract a greater share of consumer spend.

For consumers – who expect frictionless and enjoyable shopping experiences – a knowledgeable and fully capable sales associate can be the difference between being delighted and leaving frustrated with no purchase. In fact, according to a new retail store associate survey by Tulip (www.tulip.com), a mobile application provider focused on empowering workers in retail stores, mobile-assist devices help workers increase sales and improve the overall customer experience.

While this may be the case, the survey also found that 61% of store associates are actually not armed with mobile devices and only 17% are interacting with customers and expanding the relationship beyond the four walls of the store. ...

According to a study by Scalar Decisions (www.scalar.ca), an information technology solutions provider, almost three quarters of Canadian organizations have migrated at least some of their IT delivery to the cloud. That's up from 59% in 2016.

Scalar's second annual Cloud Study shows Canadian organizations have moved past security concerns as a barrier to adoption, and are now focused on maximizing the return on their investment in cloud delivery. According to the study, highly publicized security breaches haven’t caused organizations to avoid adopting cloud-based delivery. While 35% of companies saw security as a factor in determining how much to use the cloud, 90% of respondents overcame those concerns to move forward with some level of cloud integration.

"The cloud has become not just a standard IT delivery model, but THE standard IT delivery model," says Rene Heroux, chief technology officer, Scalar...

Intelligent automation will transform workplace outsourcing according to Gartner, Inc. (www.gartner.com). Sourcing and vendor management leaders must prepare to restructure these services and renegotiate contracts to leverage intelligent automation, according to the research group.

Gartner defines intelligent automation services as the umbrella term for a variety of strategies, skills, tools and techniques that service providers are using to remove the need for labor, and increase the predictability and reliability of services while reducing the cost of delivery.

“Intelligent automation will alter the provision of managed workplace services over the next few years, increasing service quality at a lower price,” said DD Mishra, research director at Gartner. “Sourcing and vendor management leaders must prepare to restructure these services and renegotiate contracts to leverage intelligent automation. Automation...

A new study from Juniper Research (www.juniperresearch.com) has found that smart speakers such as Amazon Echo, Google Home, and the Sonos One will be installed in over 70 million US households by 2022, reaching 55% of all homes. Total installed devices will exceed 175 million.

Juniper forecasts that voice assistant devices across all platforms - smartphones, tablets, PCs, speakers, connected TVs, cars and wearables, will reach 870 million devices in the US by 2022, an increase of 95% over the 450 million estimated for 2017. The research group found that the ability to pass information between device platforms will become critical for digital assistants in future, due to many users engaging multiple assistants.

However, despite rising numbers of smart home assistants, Juniper forecasts that most voice assistant usage will be on smartphones, with over five billion in use globally by 2022....

Ultra-mobile devices (UMD) are on the verge of becoming mainstream from being a niche product category, according to a new report from Transparency Market Research (www.transparencymarketresearch.com).

Their sales are soaring with companies banking on new product launches to entice the rising crop of tech savvy consumers, according to the research group. A prominent characteristic of the global ultra-mobile devices market is the presence of numerous suppliers for similar components which makes it easier for buyers to switch suppliers at low costs.

Transparency Market Research forecasts the global ultra-mobile devices market to rise at a CAGR [compound annual growth rate] of 6.1% during the period between 2017 and 2025 to become worth $267.37 billion by 2025. That’s up from $157.10 billion in 2016.

Adtaxi (www.adtaxi.com), a digital marketing agencies, has released the results of its inaugural “State of Ecommerce” in America survey, an in-depth look at ecommerce trends and consumer preferences nationwide. From small inexpensive household items to mega, high-priced purchases such as automobiles, the scope and willingness of consumers to make purchases online has proven to be powerfully pervasive.

The survey reveals just how often consumers are making purchases online, what they are purchasing and the method in which they are purchasing them. Highlights of the survey:

° A majority of consumers (55%) would be happy to purchase everything online.

° Convenience was the number one reason (50%) people shop online.

° Seventy-two percent of consumers purchase something online at least once a month.

A new study from Juniper Research (www.juniperresearch.com) has found that global consumer spend on digital content will reach $202 billion in 2018, up by 10% on this year’s total of $184 billion.

The research found that SVoD (Subscription Video on Demand) services will be a key driver of growth, with major OTT (Over The Top) players such as Netflix and Amazon committing budgets of more than $5 billion to original content over the coming year. Meanwhile, Apple and Facebook are each expected to invest at least $1 billion for the first time.

According to Juniper Research, 35% of UK households now subscribe to one or more SVoD services, a proportion which rises to 76% in the US. Furthermore, the research group says that the trend towards multiple subscriptions per household was increasing, leading to a greater opportunity for content aggregation and curation.

The worldwide public cloud services market grew 28.6% year over year in the first half of 2017 (1H17) with revenues totaling $63.2 billion, according to new results from the International Data Corporation (IDC) research group.

"Public cloud adoption is accelerating in large part as enterprises recognize that the cloud has become the launchpad for virtually every new IT innovation in the last 24 months – including AI, blockchain, quantum computing and more. Organizations not on the public cloud will be increasingly isolated from the world of tech innovation," said Frank Gens, senior vice president and chief analyst at IDC (www.idc.com).

While stronger than expected growth was seen across all regions, Asia/Pacific saw the highest regional growth at 38.9% and Asia/Pacific now represents 11.5% of all public cloud services revenues. A big part of this was driven by strong public cloud spending in China, which saw 55.6%...

New research from Parks Associates (www.parksassociates.com) shows that 41% of U.S. broadband households plan to purchase a smart home product in the next 12 months, including 27% with high purchase intentions.

The most popular devices include smart smoke/CO detectors, thermostats, and lightbulbs. Additional Parks Associates research shows that:

° Sixty percent of U.S. broadband households with insurance are interested in a smart home product that can detect, notify, or prevent damage or loss from water or fire or theft.

° Approximately 75% of U.S. broadband households with insurance who are interested in smart products are willing to let the devices automatically communicate with insurance companies.

° More than one-third of consumers in the market for a smart home device would find a recommendation from an insurance company "very important."

Software developers are involved at all levels of the software purchase process, with 43% often involved with evaluating software and 50% sometimes involved. Only 7% are never involved according to the recently released Evans Data Global Development Survey, a survey of developers worldwide conducted in six languages this fall.

Just over 50% spend between one and four hours evaluating software, not including time spent on downloading, installing and configuring the software - a task that takes between five and 30 minutes for 70% of the developers in the survey. Developers in the EMEA region spend the least time on their evaluations, with 29% spending less than an hour, while North Americans spend the most time.

"Developers are crucial to software use throughout an organization," said Janel Garvin, CEO of Evans Data, "They are looked up to as experts and often find themselves evaluating software for line of business units as well as their own tools and platforms."

With the augmented reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) market continuing to scale up quickly, ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com) has added 40 companies to its AR and MR ecosystem tracker. Growth is spreading globally, but China is showing a significant uptick in activity. In fact, of the 40 AR/MR companies added into ABI Research's Market Tracker, 25% are Chinese companies.

"North America dominates the AR market with the leading technologies, accounting for the largest share in terms of total market revenues. Asia Pacific is the second largest market with fast growth, thanks to its population, economic growth, and increasing adoption of new technologies," says Marina Lu, senior analyst at ABI Research. "China leads Asia Pacific in AR and MR usage, attaching significant importance to gaming, education, and real estate. China's massive mobile internet population provides a huge market for AR content...

The global indoor location market size is expected to grow from $7.11 billion in 2017 to $40.99 billion by 2022, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 42% during the forecast period, according to Research and Markets (www.researchandmarkets.com).

The growing trend of digitalization, increasing use of connected devices, and reliable assistance from governments for ensuring public safety are the major factors driving the growth of the indoor location market, while deployment and maintenance challenges are some of the major restraints for the growth of the indoor location market, adds the research group.

Among the technologies, the sensor and tag-based technology is a high-growth segment in the indoor location market. To monitor natural phenomena, such as heat, pressure, humidity, and air pollution, in a certain indoor space, multiple sensors are integrated with connected devices....

New data from fintech analysts, Juniper Research (www.juniperresearch.com) forecasts that mobile and wearable ticket purchases will exceed 14 billion by 2018, accounting for 54% of total digital ticket sales across transport and events sectors. Juniper estimated that the total number of transactions via mobile devices will exceed PC-based ticket sales for the first time in 2017, driven by metro and air ticket purchases.

The research found that globally, metro, bus and airline app ticketing is the most established in terms of deployment and user adoption, followed by events ticketing. By 2020, Juniper forecasts that the number of digital ticketing users across all platforms will exceed 1.8 billion, with mobile NFC accounting for 215 million unique users.

It found that the majority of mobile ticketing deployments, especially in markets such as North America, continues to be dominated by app-...

The global smart TV market is expected to reach $292.55 billion by 2025, according to a new report by Grand View Research (www.grandviewresearch.com). The introduction of 4K resolution-equipped televisions, coupled with the shifting preference toward OLED and QLED displays, is expected to emerge as a major trend in the smart TV industry, adds the research group.

Streaming devices such as the Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Google Chromecast are changing the consumers' viewing experience, says Grand View Research. Several manufacturers are teaming up with OTT content and device providers to provide built-in features with no further requirement of a set-top box. For instance, TCL Corporation has teamed up with Roku and introduced a 4K HDR Roku TV. The China-based vendor is using the Roku platform for its television product line. Additionally, Hitachi, Ltd., Hisense Co. Ltd, and Sharp Corporation...

The global mobile payment segment has experienced exceptional growth in the last five years, establishing a $600 billion market by 2017.

The market has moved well-beyond its origins of niche status and is now poised for adoption of new payment technologies such as next generation contactless payments, converged mobile wallets, integration of digital currency (like Bitcoin), wearable payment solutions, and payments through implanted chips into the human body, according to Research and Markets (www.researchandmarkets.com). The overall electronic payments market will also accelerate transformation towards a cashless society, adds the research group.

This growth will benefit all value chain stakeholders including device manufacturers, service providers, app developers, financial organizations, and merchants significantly. Many improvements will be witnessed as the ecosystem streamlines...

Higher education CIOs recognize that key organizational priorities are enrollment and student success, but fail to show innovation with regard to the top technologies required to differentiate themselves and win, according to a survey from Gartner, Inc. (www.gartner.com). Yet, a majority of respondents (59%) think there will be significant business model change due to digital transformation, adds the research group.

Gartner’s 2018 CIO Agenda Survey gathered data from 3,160 CIO respondents in 98 countries and across major industries, including 247 higher education CIOs.
Higher education CIOs ranked digital business/digital transformation as the fifth most strategic business priority. However, when it comes to the top technology areas these institutions are investing in to differentiate themselves, digitalization/digital marketing ranks only eighth amongst higher education respondents, compared to second across...

New consumer research from Parks Associates (www.parksassociates. om) shows 53% of U.S. broadband households subscribe to both a pay TV service and at least one OTT video service. OTT stands for “over-the-top,” the term used for the delivery of film and TV content via the internet, without requiring users to subscribe to a traditional cable or satellite pay-TV service like a Comcast or Time Warner Cable.

The research group reports more than 200 OTT video services are active in the U.S. market as of the third quarter of 2017, with more than 100 active in the Canadian market. The report notes that 60 players introduced OTT video services during 2016 and 2017, while only seven services closed during that same period.

"Many OTT services are evolving to be complementary to the market's largest players, instead of trying to compete directly against Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu," said Brett Sappington, senior...

Worldwide spending on mobility solutions is forecast to reach $1.72 trillion in 2021, according to new data from IDC (www.idc.com).

Although annual growth is expected to slow over the 2016-2021 forecast period, the research group still expects spending on mobility-related hardware, software, and services to see a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.7%. Worldwide mobility spending will total $1.58 trillion in 2017, an increase of 4.3% over 2016.

The United States will account for nearly one quarter of all mobility spending throughout the forecast, making it the largest geographic market at nearly $392 billion in 2021. Mainland China will be the second largest country in terms of overall spending ($337 billion in 2021), followed by Japan, Brazil, and the UK. The countries that will see the fastest growth in mobility spending over the five-year forecast period will be Venezuela (8.2% CAGR), India (8.0%...

According to the research group, one driver in the market is increase in the digitization of banking services. The increased use of smartphones and tablets has led to a digital reformation in the banking sector. The BFSI sector is one of the prominent users of portable devices (for digital payments and cashless financial transactions). With the growing transaction volumes and the introduction of new digital payment solutions, the banking sector is challenged with the need to keep the magnitude of fraudulent activities low, without compromising on the convenience of the customers, according to Research and Markets.

One trend in the market is NFC-based payments. Near-field communication (NFC) works if two devices are placed within a few centimeters to exchange data. It requires both devices to be equipped with an NFC chip. Apple is partnering with various financial institutions to introduce NFC-powered mobile payments. Before Apple launched NFC mobile payments, this technology...

The global smart fitness devices market is expected to reach USD 29.4 billion by 2025, according to a new report by Grand View Research (www.grandviewresearch.com). The smart fitness devices market has witnessed a rising demand among the growing urban population in a bid to enhance their fitness goals, adds the research group.

Advantages such as accessing fitness activities data in remote and real-time operations have resulted in an increased penetration of the market. Additionally, there are tremendous opportunities for advancements in the smart fitness devices owing to the increasing usage of smartphones and enhanced internet accessibility, which, in turn, would fuel the growth of smart fitness market. The growing adoption of the smart fitness devices to keep track of sleep, steps, calories, heart rate, and other bodily stats is anticipated to revolutionize the market by 2025, according to...

A new report from Juniper Research (www.juniperresearch.com) has found that digital advertising spend will grow by 18% CAGR (compound annual growth rate) over the next five years, rising from $184 billion in 2017 to $420 billion in 2022. These figures include advertising spend across mobile, desktop, wearables and DOOH (digital-out-of-home) signage.

The research group predicts that the annual growth of online advertising spend will slow to only 4% globally by 2022, owing to the impact of ad blocking adoption across desktop devices and the increasing usage of mobile devices as the primary means for browsing. According to the research, ad platforms will seek a greater degree of control over the types of ads being blocked through increased involvement in “acceptable ad” initiatives.

Through these initiatives, platforms are beginning to shift focus to encouraging the use of adverts that aren’t...

Worldwide spending on security-related hardware, software, and services is forecast to reach $119.9 billion in 2021, according to new data from IDC (www.idc.com).

With nearly every industry investing in security solutions to meet a wide range of threats and requirements, spending is expected to achieve a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.6% over the 2016-2021 forecast period, notes the research group. Worldwide spending on security products and services will total $83.5 billion in 2017, an increase of 10.3% over 2016.

Software Updates via MacUpdate

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Tunnelblick 3.7.4b - GUI for OpenVPN.

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